They’ve got me down. Flat on my back . . . . . with
plaster, sand bags and hot water bottles. It took the last three
instruments to do it however. I’ve contrived a way of pumping the bed
up a bit so that, with a long reach, I can get to my typewriter. . . .
my mind. . . .my brain. . . . my fingers.

Two things prompt this note to you sir. The first is that
whenever my cancer acts up. . . . and it is certainly acting up now,
I turn inward a bit. Less do I think of my hospitals around the world,
or of 94 doctors, fund raising and the like. More do I think of one
divine Doctor, and my own personal fund of grace. Is it enough?

It has become pretty definite that the cancer has spread
to the lumbar vertebrae, accounting for all the back problems over the
last two months. I have monstrous phantoms. . . as all men do. But I
try to exorcise them with all the fury of the middle ages. And inside
and outside the wind blows.

But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around
me does not matter. The winds within me do not matter. Nothing human
or earthly can touch me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my heart.
What seems unpossessable I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I
fathom. What is unutterable, I utter. Because I can pray. I can
communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot
have God?

I realize the external symbols that surround one when he
prays are not important. The stark wooden cross on an altar of boxes
in Haiphong with a tortured priest . . . the magnificence of the
Sacred Heart Bernini altar. . . . . they are essentially the same.
Both are symbols. It is the Something else there that counts.

But just now. . . and just so many times, how I long for
the Grotto. Away from the Grotto Dooley just prays. But at the
Grotto, especially now when there must be snow everywhere and the lake
is ice glass and that triangular fountain on the left is frozen solid
and all the priests are bundled in their too-large too-long old black
coats and the students wear snow boots. . . . if I could go to the
Grotto now then I think I could sing inside. I could be full of faith
and poetry and loveliness and know more beauty, tenderness and
compassion. This is soggy sentimentalism I know, (old prayers from a
hospital bed are just as pleasing to God as more youthful prayers from
a Grotto on the lid of night.

But like telling a mother in labor, It’s okay,
millions have endured the labor pains and survived happy. . . you will
too. It’s consoleing [sic] . . . but doesn't lessen the pain.
Accordingly, knowing prayers from here are just as good as from the
Grotto doesn’t lessen my gnawing, yearning passion to be there.

I don’t mean to ramble. Yes, I do.

The second reason I write to you just now is that I
have in front of me the Notre Dame Alumnus of September 1960. And
herein is a story. This is a Chinese hospital run by a Chinese
division of the Sisters of Charity. (I think) Though my doctors are
British the hospital is as Chinese as Shark’s Fin Soup. Every orderly,
corpsman, nurse and nun know of my work in Asia, and each has taken it
upon themselves to personally give to the man they feel has given
to their Asia. As a consequence I'm a bit smothered in tender, loving
care.

With a triumphant smile this morning one of the nuns
brought me some American magazines ( which are limp with age and which
I must hold horizontal above my head to read. . . . . .) An old
National Geographic, two older times, and that unfortunate edition Life
. . . and with these, a copy of the Notre Dame Alumnus. How did it
ever get here?

So Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame is twice on my mind . . .
and always in my heart. That Grotto is the rock to which my life is
anchored. Do the students ever appreciate what they have, while they
have it? I know I never did. Spent most of my time being angry at the
clergy at school . . . 10 PM bed check, absurd for a 19 year old
veteran, etc. etc. etc.

Won’t take any more of your time, did just want to
communicate for a moment, and again offer my thanks to my beloved Notre
Dame. Though I lack a certain buoyancy in my bones just now, I lack
none in my spirit. I must return to the states very soon, and I hope
to sneak into that Grotto. . . . before the snow has melted.

My best wishes to the students, regards to the faculty, and
respects to you.